There are at least two million people from Bosnia and Herzegovina abroad, which is 56,64% compared to the total population of BiH, according to countries hosts and diplomatic and consular representations of BiH abroad.
BiH citizens are most often moving to Germany, then Austria, Croatia and Serbia.
Considering the fact that BiH doesn’t have precise details regarding how many people have left the country, the only information that can be used as statistics is that of the Agency for Identify Documents, Evidence and Exchange of Information of BiH about people who have unregistered their place of residence due to emigration.
According to their information from 2016, 4,034 people emigrated, of whom 1,196 to Germany, 895 to Austria, 888 to Croatia, 487 to Serbia, 421 to Slovenia, 63 to Montenegro, 38 to Norway, 36 to Holland and 10 to other countries.
Emigrants are financially helping their family and friends in their country. The Central Bank estimates that remittances to BiH last year was 2.4 billion BAM. When foreign pensions are added, then that number increases to 3.6 billion BAM.
According to information of the World Bank, remittances to BiH are somewhat higher than the Central Bank’s estimate and are approximately 3.3 billion BAM.
According to the World Bank, the number of people from BiH that live abroad is around 44,5%, which puts BiH on the 16th place in the world in terms of emigration compared the total number of the country’s population.
The newest information of the World Bank show that BiH’s emigration percentage is significantly ahead of Serbia (18%), Croatia (20.9%), and Albania (43.6%), which was for a long period of time at the top of the list of countries in Europe in terms of the percentage of emigration compared to the total number of people in the country.
(Source: Klix.ba)
